Last month we reported that National Hiring Demand was improving in relative terms – year-over-year percent changes improved from -32.6% in April 2009 to -28.4% in May of 2009. Hiring Demand has slipped slightly since last month, with year-over-year percentage changes moving from -27.2% in May to -30.1% in June. (Slight revisions to data cause minor variations in Hiring Demand percent changes when compared to previously published results).
This month's slippage is particularly due to a robust month of May – on a seasonally adjusted basis May's Hiring Demand was up 10% compared to April. Because of May's increase in Hiring Demand, in combination with improving month-over-month declines in Nonfarm Payroll Employment (the revised drop for May was -322,000, whereas April's final number was -519,000), WANTED had forecast an optimistic drop of 260,000 in Nonfarm Payroll Employment. Despite the slight slippage this month, Hiring Demand has moved from "being flat" to starting to show signs of a possible uptrend.
The two time-series charts of new online job ads, one weekly series and one monthly series, show that since the drop off in December, Hiring Demand has been slowly inching up. (Usually the series "bounces back" in January, but, given the recession, new job ads did not come back to the previous calendar year's level.) This corresponds to slightly improving UI claims data and slowing in the month-over-month drops in US Employment.
Source: WANTED Analytics 2.0
Only three major occupations have shown relative improvement this month, with 20 other occupations showing slippage in Hiring Demand. Sales and Related Occupations improved by 5.7% in June after improving 1.2% in May. Healthcare Support Occupations improved by 1.4% after having improved 6.5% in May. Transportation and Material Moving Occupations improved only marginally by 0.2%, after having seen a decline of 5.6% in May.
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The following graph, sourced from WANTED Analytics 2.0, takes a closer look at the top five occupations in terms of job postings. Sales and Related Occupations is the only top five occupation to have improved since last month on a year-over-year basis. Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations are down 6.8%; Management Occupations are down 5.9%; Computer and Mathematical Occupations are down 4.3%; Business and Financial Operations Occupations are down 4.2%. There are usually seasonal declines in Hiring Demand in June compared to May, but year-over-year comparisons remove these seasonal effects.
Source: WANTED Analytics 2.0
Looking at the data by geography, the top US markets have also shown progression since January. The top seven US Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) have shown robust Hiring Demand through March/April/May/June.
Source: WANTED Analytics 2.0
We can expect continuing losses in US Nonfarm Employment Payroll, but at a slower pace. As Hiring Demand positions itself to show upward trending, the overall labor market will stabilize, with the hope that employment will start to grow by the end of Q3 2009.
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